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on MENA - Middle East and North Africa |
| By: | Aksoy, Hürcan Aslı; Bal, Sinem |
| Abstract: | The Turkish government's declaration of 2025 as the "Year of the Family" reflects an increasingly authoritarian approach to managing demographic decline amid conditions of economic strain. Falling fertility rates are framed as a strategic challenge to national resilience, giving rise to a policy agenda that positions the family as the cornerstone of demographic recovery. At the same time, anti-gender politics has moved beyond ideological rhetoric towards a broader governance strategy linking demographic management, fiscal constraints, and authoritarian consolidation. For Germany and the European Union (EU), understanding these developments is essential for engaging Turkey on democratic governance, social policy, and gender equality. |
| Keywords: | Turkey, Year of the Family 2025, demography, family policy, fertility rates, gender governance, gender equality, Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey's Ministry of Family and Social Services |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:swpcom:340853 |
| By: | Demirel, Merve (Stockholm University); Ghazarian, Avenia (House of Sustainable Society (HoSS)) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how restrictions on religious expression affect women’s educational attainment. We study the 2010 removal of the headscarf ban in Turkish universities, which had long limited access to higher education for visibly religious women. Our empirical strategy combines cohort-level variation in exposure to the reform with individual-level variation in the propensity to veil within a difference-in- differences framework. We estimate veiling propensities using an early wave of the Turkish Demographic and Health Survey and predict them for a later sample using both machine learning and parametric methods. We show that lifting the ban significantly increased educational attainment among women with a higher propensity to veil. These gains appear to be concentrated around the transition into and progression through secondary school. The results remain similar when, instead of individual-level propensities, we use pre-reform veiling prevalence at the province level as an alternative exposure measure. |
| Keywords: | Identity; Religious expression; Veiling ban; Turkey |
| JEL: | I24 J16 J24 Z12 |
| Date: | 2026–04–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:hamisu:2026_001 |
| By: | Mhmood, Almontaser B.; Titeca, Kristof |
| Abstract: | This brief examines how the battle for El Fasher reflects Sudan’s deeper crisis of militarized politics, showing how both the SAF and RSF instrumentalize civilians to claim political legitimacy amid escalating violence and weak international engagement. |
| Keywords: | Sudan, war, polemology |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iob:apbrfs:2026001 |